Puma were the turning point. BLK had us until the end of 2017 but went under in 2016. Puma agreed to start their sponsorship a year earlier and 2017 happened.
Puma is interesting as a sponsor. At the time, I think the only other team that wore Puma gear was the Eagles, and they quickly went to someone else leaving only us with Puma.
Then Puma screwed us all over with their delays in getting out 2017 premiership gear, although they did help us keep Dusty.
But they seem to have fixed those problems, because fast forward to this season and I think there were 4 teams wearing Puma.
The really interesting thing is though is the market that Puma command.
Last season (2020), Richmond led the league for onfield apparel sales at 15.4% of the total AFL onfield apparel market. Easy to understand when you consider we went back to back.
The team that was second also wore Puma.
And that team? Can you believe Carlton, who finished 11th and missed the finals but accounted for 11.4% of sales.
Between them, Richmond and Carlton last year accounted for almost 26.9% of all onfield AFL apparel sold.
To put that into another perspective, the next three clubs were West Coast (8%), Geelong (7.7%) and Collingwood (7.7%), combining for 23.4% of the market. None wear Puma.